Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (29 page)

“Imagine my surprise when I got to your house. I found you’d left already. But you left a little Fayleene prince, all tucked in and asleep in your bed. Even better, you left a map with your destination marked on it. I took care of your Fayleene, and used my magic to get here before you.”

Shaw let out a bone-chilling snarl. “If thou hast harmed him–”

“He is alive. For now. In a special, secure place. Trussed up like a coney for stew.” A snakelike, lipless smile crossed Magnus’ face. “But if I don’t return within the hour, the princeling runs out of air.”

“What do you want, Magnus?” I gritted.

“You’re going to let me go. I’ll put your Fayleene somewhere safe. But in a place you can’t get to him. Not until the next morning has come and gone.”

“And you have the blood of thousands on your hands?”

He shrugged. “We spoke about that, Dayna. One must shatter a few eggs to scramble them.”

I stepped up to Galen’s side. My limbs felt leaden, cold. The sounds from outside died away, until all I could hear in my head was the beating of my heart.

My hand shook as I raised my arm. Placed it on Galen’s shoulder. My eyes lit on the half-clotted cut that Magnus’ bullet had carved below Galen’s elbow.

My voice sounded distant as I spoke. “Let him go, Galen.”

He didn’t move for a moment. I heard Shaw’s voice instead.

“I say nay, Dayna!”

“This is my world, and you’re going to follow my lead,” I said sternly. “Let Magnus go.”

Galen dropped his hands. Magnus rubbed his neck where Galen’s fingerprints had left angry red marks.

“You’ve won this round, Magnus,” I said sullenly.

“It is good that you acknowledge–”

I slapped him as hard as I could. His face jerked to one side. I locked my gaze on his ocean-blue eyes. Made sure he heard my next words.

“Only
this
round.”

Magnus drew himself up. All eyes followed him.

A chill wind whistled mournfully through the room as he left.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The cold breeze blew the remaining plaster dust from the office. It also carried up the sounds from outside. The roar of the crowd hadn’t stopped. If anything, they’d gotten more raucous.

Something occurred to me. Between Shaw’s advertisement, our entrance in the courtyard, and the wizardly fireworks, everybody thought the battle had been staged for their amusement.

Hollywood. You had to love it.

Shaw sank to one knee, and then lay down gingerly. The feathers along the leading edge of his damaged wing rustled in the wind. Galen went to his bloodied side, began to probe his wounds. The griffin paid no attention to the wizard’s ministrations, even though they must have hurt.

“Defeat hath a bitter taste,” Shaw murmured.

“We’ll find another way,” I said.

“How? Thy enemy leaves us in his wake, free to return and work mischief.”

Galen spoke up, his voice soft but confident. “This contest is close-run, but it is not over. Magnus shall not be going anywhere for some time yet.”

The obvious question formed on my lips. Galen removed a glass jar from a pocket and smeared a peppery-smelling jelly over Shaw’s burns before continuing.

“Magnus was left vulnerable when Shaw took his anti-magic medallions. But I dared not burn him down until we knew what cards he had left to play.”

“I saw you cast some kind of spell,” I said, nodding. “It split Magnus’ lightning bolt and knocked him back. But I didn’t see any…well, any…”

“Any sizzle? Pyrotechnics? Not all spells are flashy. This one wasn’t. But it is quite potent.” Galen looked up and grinned. “It’s a magic-blocking spell. I deprived him of his Archmage-level casting abilities. He won’t be able to teleport, or return to Andeluvia for at least twelve hours.”

“Superb!” Shaw said, as I took Magnus’ medallions from his paw. I tucked the golden pendants in a handy pocket. “Thou must return, tell all the truth! I shall remain to find our princeling.”

Galen shook his head and moved on to examine Shaw’s wing.

“Were it so easy. The spell that blocks a wizard’s most powerful spells applies to the caster in equal measure. So we are stranded here, for now.”

“That’s just fine by me,” I said firmly. “So long as I get a chance to bring this son-of-a-bitch down. But twelve hours puts us awfully close to the end of our three day deadline. We’ll have to get moving–”

I paused as something I’d heard on one too many police investigations echoed in my ear. The unmistakable
click
of someone racking the slide of a semi-automatic pistol. Glass crunched under Alanzo Esteban’s shoes as he entered the shattered room, gun drawn.

“My God,” he breathed. “Dayna, you had better tell me what is going on, and quick-like.”

I traded a look with Galen. No point in being subtle about it anymore.

“Fine. My companions here are from another world. One where magic works. I’ve been on a murder case for them, to find who killed their king, and we just missed capturing the killer.”

“Okay. And?”

“And?” I faced him squarely. This evening hadn’t exactly been going my way, and my fuse was getting very short. “For starters, you can put away the pistol before you accidently shoot any of my friends!”

Esteban blinked. He slowly holstered his pistol. The detective squinted in the ever-shifting spectrum of light that pulsed outside the window. Tried to make out who Galen was tending to.

“A pretty wild story there, Dayna. You expect me to believe in it?”

“I expect you to believe your own eyes,” I replied, beckoning him to come closer. “You’ve met Galen before. He’s actually a centaur. And a wizard.”

“A centaur. And a wizard. Ah.”

“And as you can see, he’s tending to Shaw. Shaw’s a griffin.”

“No kidding?” Esteban knelt in front of Shaw, gave him a close look. “The entire department’s been buzzing all day about how to get tickets to this new movie about griffins.”

“Fancy that,” I said wryly.

“Yeah, it’s amazing what they can do with special effects these days.” Esteban reached out and kindly patted Shaw on the top of his eagle head as if the griffin were an oversized Irish setter. “You look like ten miles of bad road,
amigo
.”

Shaw scowled back.

“And thou art a fool and a fop!”

Esteban jumped back as if he’d been sitting on steel springs. He windmilled his arms for a moment to keep from falling over.

“Jesus Christ,” he gulped. “You’re real!”

Esteban’s eyes zigged back and forth between the griffin and me. Galen chuckled as he watched the Homicide Detective struggle with accepting Shaw’s words.

“As I once told Dayna,” Galen said, “this is reality. One should accept it.”

Esteban groped for words and came up empty. He shook his head like a dog doused with a tub full of cold water.

“Who the hell
are
you people?”

“I’ll be happy to explain,” I said, as I heard the distant wailing of sirens drawing closer. “But we need your help, Alanzo. If we don’t get out of here before the rest of the LAPD arrives, then a war’s going to break out. Thousands of people will die by tomorrow morning.”

Esteban hesitated. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as Galen finished putting a binding on Shaw’s wing. Finally, Esteban ran his hand along the side of his stubbly jawline, as if he’d made a fateful decision.

“I still don’t quite understand what’s going on,” he allowed. “But I can help you, Dayna…if you’ll go out with me afterwards.”

My jaw dropped.

“What?” I sputtered something incoherent for a moment, and then said, “Fine! Of course! I’d have said ‘okay’ before, too. You didn’t have to wait for a moment like this.”

Esteban made a knowing, smug nod. “A simple ‘yes’ would have been enough.”

I threw my hands up in frustration as Esteban led the way out. The fate of a world at stake, and here he was, thinking with the little head. I swear, I will never understand men.

Together, Galen and I helped Shaw down the stairwell. Luckily, the worst wound came from the bullet that Magnus had put into the griffin’s wing. But Shaw’s bones must have been laced with steel. He’d come through a full wizard’s blast with no more than bruises, cuts, and a couple minor burns.

We emerged back into the courtyard at Grauman’s to a healthy round of applause from the crowd. A half-dozen police cars now ringed the entire building. Esteban stood talking animatedly to one of the patrolmen.

“I’m telling you, we had reports of gunfire,” the patrolman protested.

“You think tourists have anything but sawdust between their ears?” Esteban fired back, as he pointed up towards the fourth-story window. “Isn’t it obvious? The whole thing’s a publicity stunt for the third movie in that griffin thing.”

“But–”

“But nothing! Do you want to be the one to tell Bob McClatchy that you’ve left a dozen city blocks unmanned on a festival night? Just so you could come watch a live-action advertisement for a movie?”

“You’ve got a point there,” the officer said. He stared at Shaw as we went by. “Damn, those are some good effects. Much better than in the first two films. Where’s the zipper on the suit?”

“There’s no zipper,” I explained. “He’s entirely made up of computer graphics.”

One of the officers in the background nudged his friend with an elbow. “See? Told you.”

“Okay, people,” I said, clearing my throat. “We’ve got to get back to the studio. Let’s load up! Detective, you still giving us an escort?”

“Of course, of course,” Esteban replied, and he hurried to his cruiser. I got Shaw in the back of the SUV, closed the rear hatch, and got the motor running. I pulled away from the curb as soon as Galen slammed his door.

I drove us slowly through the crowded streets, working my way off Hollywood Boulevard proper. Esteban followed in our wake, hanging off our rear bumper.

“Doubtless that was the easy part,” Galen sighed. “But we have no way to track down our quarry. Only Liam’s magic could trace Magnus’ sorcery.”

“Truly, ’tis a rotten piece of luck to have lost him,” Shaw agreed.

The poor little prince had been dogged by bad luck since he’d arrived in my world. Whether luck was a magical power or a perspective, the way Thea had described it to Liam, there was no doubt that…

Wait a minute. Perspective. When what was bad really could be good.

It hit me like a thunderclap. As we exited the festival area, I pulled the SUV over to the side of the road. It was obvious. As effing plain as day!

“Dayna?” Galen asked, concerned.

“We’re going after Magnus,” I announced. “We’re getting Liam back.”

“Praytell, how?”

“Our friend Magnus just made his first big mistake. And we’re going to use it to nail him once and for all.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

I moved the Ford Expedition up a few yards so that we had the additional glow of a street lamp to illuminate things. I’d pulled us over on a street that held little traffic and few pedestrians, so I didn’t think anyone would bother us. I leaned across the passenger side to pop open the glove compartment. I pulled out a Los Angeles city map clipped with a ballpoint pen.

I got out of the SUV and unfolded the map against the warm metal skin of the vehicle. Galen followed suit, and then came around to my side, while Shaw simply poked his head out of the broken rear window. Esteban parked his unmarked cruiser and joined us, though a deep frown creased his forehead.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Dayna, I thought you needed to get back to your house.”

“Thou shouldst be silent, lest I clout you,” the griffin declared sternly.

“Leave him be, Shaw,” I said. “Esteban, I didn’t say I needed to get back home. We needed to get away from Grauman’s so we could make our next move.”

“To apprehend this murderer you’re tracking,” Esteban said.

“No. To get back a friend of ours he kidnapped. But if we find Prince Liam, we’ll also find our killer. A wizard named Magnus.”

“Your bad guy’s holding a ‘prince’ hostage?”

I nodded. “Andeluvia—where my companions are from—is big on monarchies.”

“This guy must have it in for the royal family, then. He kills Liam’s father, then kidnaps the prince himself.”

“Your facts are slightly off,” Galen said wryly. “Magnus killed our Good King Benedict, to be sure, but Liam is hardly his heir. Prince Liam is a member of the Fayleene people. Is that clear enough?”

“As mud. Thick mud.”

“Benedict’s human,” I elaborated. “Fayleene look like white-tailed deer.”

“Except that they have the power of speech,” Galen added. “And, except for Prince Liam, they possess rather ungracious attitudes.”

“But the way Fayleene look is key,” I said, as I pored over the map. “When Liam set out today to help us find Magnus, a ranger up in Griffith Park shot him with a tranquilizer gun. Then tagged him.”

Esteban stared at me for a moment. “That’s some seriously bad luck. For our relations with this other world’s people, I mean.”

“That’s what I thought, Alanzo. Until I realized that Magnus made a big mistake. One which gives us the advantage. Like my friends here, he’s just not that familiar with our world, our technology.”

“Thou speakest fairly,” Shaw agreed. “For I cannot divine the stroke of fortune in our favor.”

“But I can,” Esteban said, with a blink of realization. “Quick thinking there, Dayna.”

“When our forest service ‘tags’ a deer,” I explained, “they don’t just put a piece of plastic in their ear. They also insert a tiny glass pellet containing a microchip transponder under the deer’s skin. Magnus just kidnapped the one member of our team carrying a
tracker
inside of him.”

At that, Galen grinned. Shaw made a soft, resonant chuckle. I turned everyone’s attention back to the map by uncapping the pen. I drew a couple of wide arcs on the paper above the city’s main grid of streets.

“Magnus said that he’d take Liam somewhere we couldn’t get to him until tomorrow morning. I’m betting that he’ll bring Liam north. Either up by Griffith Park, or somewhere into the hills above Hollywood.”

“He could just as easily stash your ‘deer’ friend in East LA,” Esteban countered. “Or go west, towards downtown Santa Monica.”

“I don’t think so. Magnus knows that I’m part of the LAPD. It’s one of the reasons I was brought to Andeluvia. He knows that I’d have ‘allies’ available to search for Liam in the city. So he’ll be looking for the shortest route out of it. The shortest route to somewhere he can stash Liam.”

“How do we locate the princeling’s tracker?” Galen asked. “If it’s under his skin, I don’t understand how we can detect it.”

“It’s a passive radio-frequency tag,” Esteban said. “If one of the tag’s microchips passes within range of a detector, it lets out a little ‘ping’ on a tracking board. The big one the Parks Service uses is up by Laurel Canyon.”

I looked at Esteban with renewed interest. “I didn’t know you were familiar with this system.”

“Ah. Yeah, that’s an interesting story.” His swarthy face took on a reddish tinge. “My last girlfriend, she worked for Fish and Game. She pulled a lot of late shifts. Those tracking centers, they’re so lonely at night. And yet strangely beautiful, with all the city lights below. You should see it, Dayna. With me, of course.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Cut to the chase, Romeo.”

“I will, I will. The people at the Parks Service, they track wildlife all along the city fringe. They’re worried about cars and such hitting animals, so they put trackers by each underpass and paved intersection. To figure out migration routes, that sort of thing.”

“That would seem to work in our favor,” Galen noted. “If Magnus knows how to use one of your world’s vehicles.”

“I’m betting that he does,” I said. “Remember, Magnus has been to this world more than once. He’d quickly pick up on how useful a car would be.”

Esteban leaned over my shoulder. He traced his finger along a couple of major roads outlined on the map. Tapped two spots in emphasis. Abruptly, I became aware of Esteban’s closeness. His cologne smelled of sweet cedar and musk. I liked it.

“If he’s using a car,” he said, “then he’ll eventually have to come along one of two ways: by the Hollywood Reservoir, or the Sepulveda Pass.”

“I agree.”

“How fast can you three move, once I contact you?”

“As fast as I can drive this SUV. Galen can’t transport us via magic, and Shaw’s hurt.”

“Wounds matter not,” Shaw said. “My wings shall suffice for thy cause.”

“I know they would,” I said. I stretched out a hand to rub the top of the griffin’s polished black beak. “But you’ll have trouble flying while it’s still night.”

“Okay,” Esteban said. He sighed heavily before he went on. “You’re still under house arrest, Dayna. So I’ll go up to Laurel Canyon. Commandeer their tracking board for us.”

“Does the LAPD have jurisdiction over the Department of Fish and Game?”

“Not really, no.” He quirked a grin as he added, “But the park service people won’t know that. Now, do you have any idea which chip frequency to look for?”

“I think so.” I pulled the tag I’d clipped from Liam’s ear out of my pocket and pointed to where the chip’s bar code had been printed on the yellow plastic.

“Perfect, Dayna. The moment I hear anything, I’ll call your cell.”

I beamed at him. “Alanzo, I really do appreciate this.”

He shrugged, and then added, a trifle shyly, “Come over to my car for a moment. I have something I think you’ll be needing.”

Puzzled, I folded up the map and handed it to Galen before following Esteban around to the rear of his patrol car. He popped the trunk, obscuring the view of the centaur and the griffin.

The mustiness of old cardboard and the sharp tang of fresh gun oil danced a two-step on my tongue. Esteban rummaged around, found a case that he’d stuffed into the trunk’s webbed cargo net. He opened it and pulled out a shiny black shoulder holster.

The handle of a Glock stuck out with an evil looking bulge.

“Esteban, I’m not fond of guns. I’ve seen way too much of what they can do to people. And I don’t like it.”

“You’re not leaving until you put this on. No matter your feelings, you should know how to use this. You’ve joined me at crime scenes, so I know that the LAPD had you qualified on nine-millimeter pistol.”

His hazel eyes seemed at once worried, and yet firmly set in stone. The eyes of someone who wouldn’t entertain argument.

I nodded agreement.

Damn him for remembering that set of regulations.

I took off my jacket and he helped slip the holster around my shoulder and torso. The gear clung to me like an alien, hateful thing, throwing off the scents of worn leather and nylon like a cheap Halloween outfit. I put my jacket back on and tugged it closed, hiding the gun’s rig as best I could.

“Better,” Esteban pronounced.

I let out a breath, tried to keep my voice even. “Are we done now, Detective?”

“Almost,” he said seriously. “
Perdone
, Dayna. I am sorry, but I don’t really know your new friends. Not as you do. How much do you trust them?”

I didn’t hesitate. “With my life, Esteban.”

He paused for a moment. Esteban turned away and slammed the trunk shut.

“Then I hope they live up to your expectations.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

The dark streets remained empty, ominously quiet as I drove Galen and Shaw back to the house. Esteban parted ways with us at the freeway as he made a sharp U-turn to catch a different entrance ramp. A short while later, I pulled us into the garage and gratefully lowered the automatic door.